Comets: Key ingredients for life on Earth
Posted on: Thursday, 30 April 2009, 12:29 CDT
An Israeli scientist says comets might have provided the elements for the emergence of life on Earth.
Tel Aviv University Professor Akiva Bar-Nun said he discovered comets were the source of missing ingredients needed for life in Earth's ancient primordial soup.
When comets slammed into the Earth through the atmosphere about 4 billion years ago, they delivered a payload of organic materials to the young Earth, adding materials that combined with Earth's own large reservoir of organics and led to the emergence of life,
said Bar-Nun. He said it was that chemical composition of comets that allowed them to kick-start
life.
His theory appears in the journal Icarus.
Source: United Press International
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